Infographic: The Importance of Implementing Risk and Needs Assessments Successfully

Risk and needs assessments are critical tools that corrections and community supervision agencies can use to help them accomplish their goals of reducing recidivism and using resources efficiently. The results of these assessments can help agencies estimate risk of recidivism among the people they supervise, identify the specific needs of individuals, and make more informed programming and supervision decisions.

These tools offer tremendous value, but they must be validated routinely and implemented correctly to ensure that their results are accurate, particularly across race and gender lines. Many criminal justice agencies have begun using these tools, but far fewer have evaluated their implementation or conducted validation studies in recent years.

This infographic, from the CSG Justice Center, explains the urgent need for corrections agencies to examine how they administer risk and needs assessments, so they can confidently rely upon the results and avoid the pitfalls of poor implementation.

To learn more about risk and needs assessments and how to implement them well, take a look at these additional resources: